Alabama standoff: Man shoots bus driver and takes 6-year-old hostage

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. — Police, SWAT teams and negotiators were at a rural property where a man was believed to be holed up in a homemade bunker Wednesday after fatally shooting the driver of a school bus and fleeing with a 6-year-old child passenger, authorities said.

The man boarded the stopped school bus in the town of Midland City on Tuesday afternoon and shot the driver when he refused to let the child off the bus, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olsen told WBMA-TV.

The coroner said the bus driver died of multiple gunshot wounds.

The Dale County Sheriff’s Office named the victim as 66-year-old Charles Albert Poland, Jr. It said he had been a bus driver since 2009 for the Dale County Board of Education.

According to WSFA News 12, as of 11 p.m. Tuesday night, authorities were using a PVC pipe connected to the bumper to communicate with the suspect and the child was said to be “okay.”

County coroner Woodrow Hilboldt told The Associated Press the overnight standoff continued early Wednesday with tactical units, negotiators and other officers at the scene near a church. He said the suspect was believed to be in an underground shelter on his property.

“That’s what has been described to me as an underground bunker. Someplace to get out of the way of a tornado,” Hilboldt said.

Michael Senn, a local minister, told WSFA the children went to Destiny Church to seek refuge.

One of the girls on the bus told Senn the shooter instructed the students to get off the bus, but grabbed the 6-year-old boy and shot the bus driver four times. The rest of the children ran away hid behind the church for safety.

“All the kids are at a safe place,” Senn told WSFA, but he added that the kids appeared to be in shock.

Midland City police would not comment, and a dispatcher at the Dale City Sheriff’s office told The Associated Press early Wednesday that the agency was not releasing any immediate details.

Authorities from multiple agencies were on the scene and nearby residents were evacuated from their homes as a precautionary measure, said Rachel David, a spokeswoman for the police department in the nearby town of Dothan.

“Authorities also confirmed the presence of a child at the scene but are giving no further information at this time,” David said in a news release late Tuesday.

Michael Creel, who lives on the road where the shooting happened, said he went outside after his sister heard gunshots.

“Me and her started running down the road,” Creel told the Dothan Eagle. “That’s when I realized the bus had its siren going off. Kids were filing out, running down the hill toward the church.”